


Harlequin Boy

by Extrinsic_Demagoguery



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, Hebephilia, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Obsession, Pedophilia, Rape/Non-con Elements, References to Vladmir Nobokov's Lolita, Sebastian is a creep, Underage Sex, so is Jim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:22:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Extrinsic_Demagoguery/pseuds/Extrinsic_Demagoguery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita: <br/>Sebastian Moran is an out of work veteran and author with a fondness for young boys. James Moriarty, a twelve year old boy living in an unstable home, finds his chance to manipulate an older man to serve his own purposes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the late 1950s. The timeline is altered somewhat as Sebastian would have been much older than a teen to have served in the Korean War, but we've all seen stranger things occur in fics...  
> Any somewhat 'off' or antiquated terms or themes are due to the time period and/or Sebastian being a fussy, ostentatious trash bucket.
> 
> Anyone who's read Lolita will notice that several (only two or three) lines are robbed directly from the work, and this is deliberate. No disrespect is meant.

Jim, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. His mother’s voice grated upon my ears, sloppy and fat; to her he was “Jimmy,” her precious boy-child, as innocent as the misnomer might suggest. He was James in scrawled ink, and Jay at the playground. But in my arms he was simply Jim.

Jim would have remained James forever, perhaps, had I not loved a certain boy in the winter of my fourteenth year. Fair but pink, with rounded cheeks swollen and chapped from frigid air and tawny hair poking out from beneath a weft-knit hat; he was mine. We were lovers not long, but passionately, as only young men with no greater woes to contrast bloody hearts can. Neither wise nor prudent, only terribly smitten, we would wander along the frozen banks of the bathing pond coddled in the center of Victoria Park. He was plump around the middle which seemed to tip his balance, and I delighted to hold his chilly hand as he bashfully stumbled over the cracked tarmac. It was only later in a heap of cold, firm skin did we find the anxious fortitude to manifest our childish whims in so adult a manner. His behind, I recall, was soft and white, planted before a warm hearth in my family’s upstairs drawing room. The flesh of his sloped shoulders was peppered with drops of melted snow, trembling slightly, which I overzealously attempted to calm with my soggy, be-mittened paws. A surprised shriek was followed by desperate giggles, pretty fingertips slapping away the cold of my own. We loved boldly, that night, kissing with a frightful abandon and touching each other recklessly as we knew not yet how to love men. I attempted to fellate him, sputtering all the while, but as his orgasm filled my mouth I knew quite inexplicably how to be whole. I still remember that sweet, bitter blend, the twitching of his cock lodged between my tongue and palate, his knees squeezing helplessly at my jaw. His hand brought me to climax soon after, and we fell asleep nude on the carpet not twenty minutes later.

We awoke to a severe beating at the hand of my father, of which my William did not survive.

I cannot pretend to know the true motives behind my wicked desires. Am I innately perverse, twisted inside to yearn naturally for the ruddy, buckled knees of youth? Did something within me pass as Will did, immortalized by those weeping blue eyes bludgeoned red? The true vindications behind my bizarre nature remains a mystery, but it matters not—I am ever at the mercy of my own depraved appetite, reasoning be damned.

Now I wish to introduce the following idea: between the tender ages of nine and fourteen there are boys who, to certain men far older than they, reveal their true nature. Such a nature is not human, but nymphic (that is, demonic); and these individuals I call "nymphs." They are boys with mysterious natures; elusive, slick, insidious, clever, shifty—seemingly alike in body to their innocent peers, but antithetic in mind and spirit. He is not merely the most attractive of the lot, and is in fact often not. He possesses a glint of the eye so subtle that only a madman, a hideous soul with such terrible propensities (such as myself) would notice it. Such a boy is a deadly demon among pretty, sweet little children, and to love him is to be mistaken as a corruptor of the sinless. What a ridiculous notion.

I could not have known it at the time, but William was of the nymph kind. Were there ten or twenty years between us I would have recognized the snare concealed behind his soft laugh and his azure eyes immediately. We were equals, then, and so his fawn-like wiles were unclear to me…still manipulating me, sucking me in, but it posed no real danger with my adolescence assuming me faultless.

I digress. The years of military service following my secondary schooling proved heartless, though splendidly informative. Those were blank years, fueled by the hot rage of a frustrated young man whose trigger finger saw more action than his phallus—a crime, to be sure, especially for one with desires so difficult to sate. I was not lacking for nymphs, for every country has them in abundance, though their overall population is but a small fraction of the little children one more frequently encounters. Often I would see pretty chestnut boys with willowy limbs, groins bared, watching with wide eyes at the white men passing by. You would think that I, labeled a paedophile in any respectable diagnostic lexicon, would find their young bodies arousing. I did not. It takes a nymph, you must understand, to provoke me so. In my fifth year of service I at last met one more than in passing, and though his native tongue skimmed his palate like gibberish in my ears, I knew I had been captured.

He was eleven, maybe twelve, quite prim in his traditional garb. Unlike most of Korean boys I had encountered thus far, his hair was quite long, nearly to his shoulders. His oriental eyes had a pleasing slant, but were not thin. It was the first time since my fledgling years that I had such a small hand to hold in my own, heat blossoming outward from his tiny palm. By the crumbled ruins of an old shrine I sank into his body, his knobby knees pressed flush to my armpits. A nymph's insides, I am convinced, are made to accomodate in a way no ordinary child's passage could. Little toes curled and clenched, then fingers mirrored the action against my shoulders, and I could feel him suck me in quite mercilessly. The boy gave barely a whimper before we were caught, me in the ardent throes of impassioned lust. I was manacled, sentenced in a little white room that reeked of stale coffee, and was subsequently dishonorably discharged. It was kept, fortunately, heavily under wraps.

I found myself, quite some years later, upon the doorstep of one Mrs. Moriarty. The recent death of her husband had left her a large house and an even larger inheritance, but a lack of company that she found, apparently, quite startling. I was myself out of work, my days filled with useless scribblings that once amounted to great works of militaristic nonfiction. Great, at least, in numbers sold, though sales had waned in the growing years. I myself was nearly forty, as unwitting to enunciate the foreboding number as any man of thirty-seven would have been. Perhaps I have always had slightly vain inclinations, but never before had I invested so heartily in the careful grooming of my declining appearance. My blonde hair was carefully slicked back, forehead glossy with perspiration, broad shoulders sheathed in a well fitted (if not somewhat stifling) brown worsted wool suit.

I was surprised when Mrs. Moriarty opened the door instead of some priggish maid that a house so exorbitant would be sure to employ. She was a handsome woman, throat bare and adorned by nothing more than the thick, loose black curls tumbling about her shoulders. Her eyes were slim and dark, lashed thickly, and rimmed with an excess of smudgy liner. Beneath a sharp nose were soft, plump lips, poisonously red. Short in the limbs and wee-waisted, she seemed a wicked woman, a temptress in a floral chiffon dress too light and whimsical to match her sultry affectation. I was at once ushered in with a flick of her cigarette of which she held tightly between sharp nails varnished burgandy. “Mr. Moran…” she crooned with a slight tipping of her hips, to which my body felt no reaction. I smiled politely, removing my hat as a gentleman does, and nodded briefly in salutations. I could not help but notice her eyeing my facial scars. “Please, come in!” She pressed upon my upper back with a surprising boldness, and found myself standing in a rather charming entry-way. The choice of furniture, I observed, was plain—not inexpensive, by any means, but rustic by any aristocrat’s standards. The tour of the house was fairly standard…I was impressed by the height of the ceiling, the size of the rooms and the sturdiness of the furnishings therein, along with other notable flourishes of fancy, but could not see myself actually taking up residence here. She saw my hesitance and poised herself against a wall opposite, pursing her lips in a way I could only describe as Machiavellian. Offering her my most congenial smile, I held my hat awkwardly to my belly, nodding restlessly as if to some swinging tempo. “I confess this household has not had proper upkeep; however, I assure that you will find yourself most comfortable here.” Though I attempted to keep my face impassive, I must have looked unconvinced, for she hastened to continue. “Please, let me show you the garden.” I accepted with as much pleasure as I could muster from my voice, although I was feeling quite bedraggled by the heat and wanted no more than to take my leave and find a cool place to rest. Mrs. Moriarty—or Veronica, as I had been dutifully reminded twice already—guided me to a wide screen door that she opened with a shove. I could immediately tell why she had been so eager to show me the garden…it was voluminous with flowers matured to full bloom, inviting their powdered guts outward in a flamboyant array of colors.

However, it was not the flowers that captured my attention. Veronica gave a roll of her eyes and tossed her glossy hair back, extending two fingers in the general direction of a young boy and then flicking them dismissively. “That’s James....Jimmy, dear, won’t you say hello?” There was a hint of malice in her voice, I presumed from multiple past attempts to lure her son into decent conversation. And oh, oh, he was _ravishing_. My hat fell from being clung to my belly to hanging limply at my thigh, and I presume that my face was likewise far too telling. The child lay upon his belly, propped up by slender elbows, his face downturned to the pages of a ratty old book. From devastatingly short brown slackettes sprouted slender, pale legs with delicate ankles which he kept positioned in the air and swung slightly to and fro. He could not have been more than thirteen, so narrow were his shoulders, and so small his frame. He looked up at the two of us momentarily, and I recognized a nymph at once. Vast, obsidian eyes burned with latent devilishness, pupils maddeningly blown out as though he had enjoyed his turn at a pipe. The boy’s lips were pink and small, curving slowly into a smile that soon showed neat rows of tiny, pearly teeth. My heart skittered and lurched, and I could have sworn that on that blazing July day my little Will was before me, swaddled in snow. Veronica reached out to touch a fern she had planted, twiddling a frond with obvious enthusiasm. This James—my Jim, I would later find, but for now he was James—did something that even I found most surprising, as wizened as I thought myself in regards to the tricky nymph. The boy winked, his grin decidedly malicious, before turning back to his book with the sweetest of countenances.

Veronica took me by the arm, turning me about, utterly oblivious to the thudding in my chest. “That was my James” she said, “and those were my dahlias.”

“Yes,” I returned, “Yes. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.” 


	2. Chapter Two

I had taken, some mornings, to laboring myself over a sink ringed with soap scum. Done up in a mint green á la mode, it was located in the secondary upstairs loo across from James’s room. Contained within was a queer little port window framed by peeling white sealant. From it I had an excellent view of the neighbor’s picket fenced yard, as well as a small patch of much trodden land that James had apparently claimed as his tiny kingdom. I was never a man to rush toiletries in the morning, hygiene being of especial importance to me, but nor could I recall taking quite so long to drag a safety razor down my stubbled cheek. From here I could watch the dear child amuse himself with sticks and mud, though his patience for any sort of play seemed short lived. He would hop from one mound of ground to the next, dragging the white toe of a shoe through sodden earth, perhaps to spite his mother’s fastidious concentration on outward appearances. Throughout the two-week duration of my stay thus far I had not once seen him interact with other children despite the seemingly endless selection of neighborhood brats. Perhaps he thought himself above it, as he never seemed lonely in his solitude, and he occupied himself quite happily with all manners of solo cavorts. While slowly dabbing aftershave upon my freshly rinsed face, I watched in fascination as the creature hooked his knees over a low-hanging branch of a slightly diseased looking poplar tree. Hanging upside down, he wavered in midair, wisps of inky hair fluttering in the soft summer breeze. My hand stilled upon my face and oh, oh, how my innards boiled, how my throat constricted with monstrous lust, how my groin ached with penitent neglect. I patted my now fragrant hands dry upon a towel without bothering to wash them, stealing another hastened glance out the round glass. Be still my purulent heart, the boy’s shirt had come untucked to expose a beautiful length of cream skin. The hem fell to his chin, and to my utter shock he at once bit upon a stray corner, inadvertently (I thought) pulling it down all the further. His hips had all the awkward angularity of a growth spurted child, but softer somehow, sloping gently towards a petite middle. James’s bellybutton seemed a mere shadow upon his belly, and upwards from that were two rosy nipples. I would have gawked for an eternity were there not a sudden rapping at the door, and in surprise I dropped my towel.  
“Mr. Moran?” came the balmy voice of Veronica. “Breakfast is on, when you’re ready.” I gave my thanks and assured her I would be down momentarily, simultaneously seizing the dropped towel from where it had landed upon my feet. I could tell she hesitated from behind the door, though I knew not why, and breathed my relief as she left me in peace. When I looked out the window once more James had disappeared.

Breakfast was a tense affair in the Moriarty household. I gave my best impression of a man both oblivious and preoccupied, lifting slices of rendered pork to my mouth in comfortable silence. Veronica occasionally filled the silence with the greasy corpulence of her blathering voice, punctuating her fraudulent anecdotes with dainty sucklings upon sectioned citrus fruits. James leaned his cheek upon one hand, elbow propped up improperly upon the table (which Veronica corrected once with a slap, but he shortly restored his position) and his free hand tracing letters in a puddle of maple syrup. I diligently kept my focus on Veronica’s flapping lips, but dragged my eyes over James whenever I could manage to do so without rousing suspicion. The first two times he was doing nothing of interest, though I could have watched him for hours, dripping amber syrup from his dainty fingertips. As I raised my eyes to him a third time, however, his black eyes were vehemently upon me. I could not find the strength to look away, but quickly filled my mouth with a clump of scrambled eggs to prevent from sputtering. The boy dragged his index finger through the syrup before lifting it to his mouth, a blushed tongue poking out to press against the base of his digit before it was enclosed entirely by wee, supple lips. I must have startled terribly, for I tasted the metallic tang of a bitten tongue. The eggs had long gone gummy in my mouth but I continued to chew resolutely. Veronica continued to prattle on, reaching out for a ceramic pepper shaker that she then used to eclipse her hash browns in a nauseating heap of the spice. The child’s face remained devoid of emotion as he pushed his finger deeper into his mouth, the last knuckle disappearing into what surely must have been a cramped space. I knew I would not last long without becoming crippled with my carnal longings; with much reluctance I excused myself from the dining table.

July was slipping into August and brought with it new heat, so much so that snappy dressing was as lethal as it was vain. I desired much to roll my trouser legs up to my knees, but thought it indecent, daring instead to peel off my button-down in favor for a paltry A-shirt. I lounged feverishly upon a badly cushioned pinewood chair designed to prop up the legs most comfortably, fanning myself with a folded bit of newspaper. Veronica had provided me with lemonade so saccharine it hardly quenched my thirst, though I found its cooling effect most meritorious. Not long after I had settled James and his obtuse mama waltzed out to join me on the piazza in matching states of undress. Veronica had pinched her rounded, feminine hips into a high waisted bikini bottom, heavy breasts thrust upward by a black haltered bikini top to beget ridiculous cleavage. She looked uncomfortable in the constrictive get up, but nonetheless proud, peacocking herself before me with honeyed thighs. I knew I was meant to look impressed at her fashionable ensemble, but I was rather distracted by her child’s simpler fancy. He wore only tight-fitting blue cotton briefs that did not extend much past the small, enticing bulge between his legs. Long, fine-boned thighs met ruddy, scuffed knees, which gave way to calves that I could have encircled easily with one hand.

He lay upon the grass as Veronica lingered beside me to talk of a neoteric work on the bastings of hams, or some other such feminine nonsense, and I nodded periodically to suggest that her dull gab had my full attention.  James held his book before him, the same one that I had encountered him reading the first time I saw him—in fact, he looked unmistakably similar, his dear sweet ankles twitching under the stippled light from a nearby maple tree. The taught skin across his spine, so serpentine in its sinuous curve, was mottled with a kaleidoscopic array of colors from Veronica’s heat-wilted dahlias. I watched, and watched, the ache in my groin threatening to make itself known. Bashfully, but with as much innocent contingency as I could muster, I covered my lap with the newspaper and folded my hands upon it. Veronica settled herself upon the ground with a bottle of sun-tan lotion, oiling her legs lasciviously as she remarked on politics; keeping her opinion guarded, of course, as one does in conversation. I found her dreadfully pathetic. Rocking my hips gently forward, I gave the child my intermittent study, allowing the stolen ecstasy to pool in my loins. I was firm in my trousers, now, and leaking persistently. In an unwise moment of eager impulse, I pressed my palm hard upon the erection shielded by the flimsy paper and rolled my hips into the touch. To my luck Veronica was deeply focused on slathering her toes with oil to bake in the sun, and James was apparently absorbed in his reading. Barely able to contain desperate whimpers, I watched the boy slide his smooth legs together, occasionally stretching a pale arm out to fiddle with a blade of grass. Still trembling with desire as my wayward hand continuing its perilous ministrations, James looked up quite suddenly, a hideous smirk twisting an unrepentant mouth. Those aphotic eyes narrowed loosely as though caught in the throes of lust, lips falling open to cry out silently, his body jerking forward in an impish charade of orgasm. Such a wicked pantomime burned within me, and I knew at once that this nymph was of the most terrifying breed—but it was too late. I lifted my hand away from the solidness below in an attempt to stave the impending climax, but he only continued to mock me, slender shoulders rolling back in feigned abandon. My body was paralyzed with pleasure, hot and sudden, spurting my pleasure unassisted beneath the shield of grey newsprint. Veronica turned to me with a bimbo’s plastic smile, and for once I relished her asininity; she had not a clue that I had just ejaculated beside her. I was deliciously warm, more from my satisfaction than the blistering summer heat, but I found could not enjoy my rapture for long. 

The little nymph was not simply demonic, he was a succubus. And he had selected _me_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for such a short chapter, but man it was fun to write. I'm not terribly good when it comes to quantity, but my hope is that quality (*crosses fingers*) will make up for where it's lacking. As ever, comments motivate me to continue writing.


	3. Chapter Three

I grew bloated with vexed frustration in the following days; with it my head began to pulse with a confounding rhythm and my heart in diametric opposition. I was a man torn between the stale reservations instilled within me and my own potent desires, utterly defenseless from the strange and perverse contrivances of that pretty, wicked little beast. Veronica had presently occupied herself with concocting all manners of cloying, mildly repulsive concoctions to entice me, with her most recent enterprise being offered to me in a tall, frosted glass. Upon tasting I was able to pull some of the more aggravating flavours: that of mint, eucalyptus, and grenadine. I found it easiest to just humour the floozy, though it was most trying. It was out of foresighted paranoia that I so graciously accepted her pursuits. It seemed perhaps, at that moment, that if only I could remain accommodating (with that gentlemanly affectation that easy women found ineffably attractive) I could keep her trifling mind away from my somewhat obvious nepotism for her son.

A thankfully unspoken agreement had been forged between myself and the nymph ever since my attraction had been inadvertently expressed. I was to entertain his mother with conversation and the occasional outing (which I hoped desperately was not mistaken as courting, though it was clear that the entire neighborhood had already decided it was) in order to keep her from constantly berating her son. In return my true, inappropriate lusts remained unhindered and unreported. At first it seemed futile, for as much as I attempted to engage the woman in her banal gab she paused frequently to adjust James’s posture with a smack against his back, or his tone with a hissed “oh _do_ stop sniveling, it’s hideous.” It was not long before Veronica’s querulous behavior improved, which I found intolerably obnoxious as soon as she began to flounce about in her frocks like a vainglorious bird. Only twice did I overhear any troubling exchanges; once long past bedtime and the other after a dispute over a broken lamp. It was strange, though, and bothers me still—she stomped into his room at a quarter past twelve and whispered malice, most of which I could just barely make out through the wall, while James remained perfectly silent. I could not even be sure he was awake for the affair. Among her diatribe I picked out ‘worthless’ and ‘ungrateful,’ which I found oddly unsettling. Far be it for I to question the parenting skills of any mother, for I am hardly qualified in the area, but it seemed fruitless to insult a young boy so clearly misbehaving out of spite.

Veronica was of the insufferably social sort, in a near constant and regrettably immutable state of dinner planning. Twice weekly the leaves of the dining table would be folded outward to seat a half dozen of her gabbing consorts; I found myself overwhelmed by womenfolk. I longed desperately for the company of other men despite the fact that I have never been one for fraternization. With so many dinners on the agenda I discovered that James did not share his mother's fondness of off-white glassware, which he demonstrated by knocking the dishes set at his place—piled high with his mother's rich cooking, mind you—onto the floor. Only the plate shattered, which seemed to perplex him, but I found it inexplicably satisfying. The woman shook her curls indignantly, but in her effort to appear a gracious hostess and doting mother, she merely tugged her fingers lightly through James's hair and tutted about the mess. I never found Veronica to share much in common with her offspringed boy, but through her animosity towards the child I saw flickers of that unscrupulous spirit that had me so possessed. Those thick, crimson-glossed lips would roll back like two inflamed rolliches to reveal an artificial smile that I was by now familiar with, and in it I could see her James. Perhaps she had once been herself a slippery nympthet, but over time had lost her charm to boiled foods and quaint dinner parties. A regrettable sight, but I am confident it is common, as I have never met a nymph—or nymphet, though I have never taken the slightest interest in one—over the age of sixteen. Perhaps the onset of adulthood bears some terrible cipher to corrupt the tender flesh and spooky eyes; though I couldn’t name it, and it is hard to say what precisely does the trick. Velvet skin becomes briny with stinking acne, red and swollen, and softly snubbed noses become greasy and craggy. Hair that fell in soft tufts crust towards the scalp and must be washed with alarming frequency…it is a sore shame in ordinary, pretty children, but a criminal malfeasance in the darling nymph.

It was after one such soiree that I, burdened with a belly full of fried chicken livers, found myself invited to join Veronica and her friends (though they hardly seemed to know each other past differing tastes in interior decorating) around her backyard fire-pit. I had seen James collect charred bits of sticks from it before, but it had appeared otherwise long unused. A sliver of the sun still glowed over the horizon, smearing the piazza with a dull orange luster while the garden and lawn was already eclipsed in darkness. The ladies had taken threadbare blankets to perch on, and some roosted upon cushions, each taking careful precaution to fold their legs tightly in my male presence. They could have sat with their legs spread wide, knickers bared, and I still would not have eyes for them. Certainly not while James slowly circled the fire, a smoking branch in hand, fanning it lazily in the night air to watch the smoke curl as the women chatted about some neighborhood rabid dog. Apparently that constituted news among the insipid. The long-limbed faun wore jersey trousers that he’d cut off just above the knees and a striped shirt that was two glorious sizes smaller than he was surely meant to wear. He had a curious way of walking, which I had dutifully studied; his feet he dragged slightly behind him, knees buckled in a charmingly infantile fashion, hips protruding perversely forward as he shambled along. When spooked or pranking he scampered much like a spider, hurtling forward with a bizarre, sideways gait that miraculously did not alter his course. This evening he was stop-and-go, fixated on the flames like a moth to a lamp, and only when it had died to embers did he grow bored of the fire and his smoldering branch. With a dainty flick of his precious wrist he threw it into the pit and lept over it to the other side, much to the annoyance of his mother. One of the less obtrusive women surprised me with an uncharacteristically prying question regarding my facial scars, though I was not offended by it. Despite my disdain for inane chat I have practically perfected the craft of story-telling, and with much gesticulation and vocal animation find it remarkably easy to entrance a crowd. Halfway through my story (the wartime telling of how I survived a guerrilla attack by two men with knives) I felt a startling tickle at the nape of my neck: cold little fingers swept across the fine hairs, inducing a discordant shiver that my spine swallowed downward. Veronica prepared to scold him, but decorum prevented her from interrupting my story. For that reason I slowed the pace of the anecdote, pausing for effect, and meanwhile savouring the rapturous tickle of the boy’s unkempt nails. I lifted a hand to illustrate the path one fateful blade took, and little James ducked beneath it, gathering up a fold in my trousers with his monkeyish toes as he crawled into my lap.  Oh, how my heart did pitch within my chest, how my loins ached as his comfortable weight settled upon them. In an effort to appear nonchalant I pressed a fatherly hand against his back, continuing my tale without a hitch. Veronica pursed her lips but protested not, allowing me a stolen moment to delight in her son’s small body. His cuspate chin dug into the yielding flesh where my forearm and bicep met, thumb effectively bisecting my wrist as if to test my pulse. Once or twice I flicked my gaze down upon him and was rewarded by a sight so magnificent it provoked meaningful but insoluble clarity within me. That devilish face I had come to crave and fear in tantamount had softened considerably; a roseate glow from the waning embers warmed his soft, white face, and against it his black lashes kissed it sweetly goodnight. How the beastly child that so easily mocked me could appear abruptly vulnerable, as though he truly were a boy of thirteen, was quite beyond me.

My spirits fell when Veronica at last insisted that James should retire to bed, and bit my tongue to prevent suggesting that I escort himsuch. Such a proposition could easily be misconstrued—though any suspicions on the mother’s part would have been fairly ratiocinated. Up until this point the cow had proven to be worthlessly vapid, however, and I had little reason for honest worry. I lowered my head for a last inspection of the tired boy and was shocked to behold such a changed expression; from his eyes opalescent teardrops wobbled at the creases of his slitted eyes, blown pupils shimmering black in reflection. His wee hand clung loosely to my shirt, pinkie clicking absently at a button, and it inspired such tenderness inside me that I felt inclined to steady myself. Virulent tears trickled down his cheeks as his mother’s shadow drew nearer, and I was astonished to say the least, quite shaken by such an unexpected display of emotion. Unprepared to have the boy plucked off of me; my innards squirmed with vertiginous malaise as he was swiftly removed from my person. I hoped desperately that my knees moved quickly enough to conceal my erection, which they perhaps did not, but my reflexes in conjunction with Veronica’s utter fatuousness had once again commanded my feigned innocence.

“I do apologize for his juvenile behavior, Mr.Moran.” Veronica’s voice snapped like a rubber band against unwitting meat, and I could only nod amiably, left now to amuse the remaining women as she made off to put James to bed. Without my beloved distraction I was ill at ease, but carried on, dragging dehydrated fingertips down my scars as I spoke of them. They looked impressed, with one somewhat frightened, and all clasped their hands to their bosoms in ladylike consternation. I was not forced to endure their conventions for much longer, for not long after Veronica returned she prompted a nightcap in the drawing room. I gave my concessions and retired to bed, feeling vaguely put out by the entire episode. Parties still did not suit me, and no amount of piquant poultry and robust wines could change my preferences. Veronica supplied her dissatisfaction at my departure, but it was not enough to sway me, not tonight.

Bed offered little comfort. The queer expression James had sported haunted my mind’s eye—it was not the tears I found most troubling, but the lack of accompanying noise. James took every opportunity to scorn his mother with loud tantrums or periods of stony, mute conniption; never had I seen him cry silently. Time grew distorted as I willed sleep to come, but it proved an elusive bastard. I measured the time in rough increments, guided by the familiar noises that preceded sleep. Two clicks from downstairs: the porch light turned off, followed by the bakelite chandelier suspended in the dining room. Veronica brushing her teeth, the sound of a faucet, and then relative silence. I had very nearly drifted to a comfortable stasis when a shuffling sound came from the carpeted corridor; it started and stopped, started and stopped, not unlike a certain nymph marching ‘round the fire pit. Of course I recognized James’s footsteps at once, but grew uncertain as they passed the bathroom. Apprehensive, I moved to a sitting position, poising in the darkness for more conclusive sounds.

Not a moment later James was standing in my doorway, one spindly arm wound tightly around a much abused teddy bear. Even in the scant light of the dim hallway I could make out a lost eye and patchy fur where liberties had been taken with a pair of shears. We stared at one another silently for a long and disquieting period before the door was shut behind him, my eyes adjusting to the small boy illuminated only by blue moonlight. He cast a wicked look, plump lips purpled and parted, but still there was something lacking in his usual affectation. Children plagued by the onset of puberty generally express their moods with reckless abandon, but his angst was calmly rendered, almost reverently contained. The mattress dipped beneath his meager weight and I rolled back the sheets to accommodate him, unsure of his motives but willing to reciprocate them nonetheless.

That shiny shock of ebony hair nudged gently into my side as he curled up beside me, dainty feet trapping one of my ankles. His skin felt oddly cool on such a sweltering night. Something within me feels cheated even still; I experienced no terror in that moment, no proud gratification of my brazen indomitability, no heady rush of adrenaline. Instead I was lulled into a near meditative state by James’s breath steady against my thigh and the peculiar added sensation of knotted fake fur.

“What’s the fellow’s name?” I whispered into the room, half not expecting an answer. He was strangely attached to toys for a boy of his age.

“None of your fucking business.” James replied snarkily, but I could feel him grinning into my leg. He had a delicious habit of repeating every curse word he could possibly absorb, mostly to further horrify his mother. I chuckled, sliding my fingers into his hair, and waited.

“It’s David.” He supplemented after a short while, tucking his knees up to cross mine. “After my da.”

I only nodded in response, taking the opportunity to slide my arm around his narrow shoulders. He leaned into my touch, and then lurched forward, nearly crushing my ribs as he elbowed his way onto my belly. Heaving, I dared only to stare at him, my hands hovering in the air as though I aimed to catch a fish. The nymph dropped his teddy onto my chest, leaning over until the tip of his nose brushed mine. There seemed a recondite, buzzy magnetism reflecting off him to prickle my flesh, something utterly uncontrollable. As soon as his lips found my scruffy chin I was utterly paralyzed, more with dismayed arousal than shock. Two pecks were placed against my upper lip before both were captured by satin embouchement, a little tongue slipping unscrupulously past my chapped lips. Desperately my arms looped around a fragile waist, pulling the child closer. Hovering in my mind remained the boy’s face, chaste and downed like a fresh-picked peach coddled in my lap as he cried. Why he cried, I did not know, nor could I tell now why he was kissing me. His thighs gripped at either side of me, unrelenting, but I could not find it in me to question his intent. I could smell the youth on him: his skin was imbued with sweet summer grass and thirsty earth, hair fragrant with the faint perfume of his mother’s shampoo.

“Daddy…” he whimpered against my mouth, causing me to freeze entirely. I felt first horror, than arousal, all of which was wrought with confusion. The implication was as disturbing as it was alluring, and I knew not what to make of it.

“Jim….” I croaked back to him, clutching his white pyjamas with both fists. “…My Jim.”  

He grinned at me, and in his eyes I saw no light. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowee I am so unhappy with this chapter. My apologies for the wait! I hope it doesn't read as poorly as I think it does...but that's enough of my complaining. Comments sustain me! Praise and critique are equally welcomed here.
> 
> That aside, the lovely radioaction drew me a thing inspired by my fic! You can view it here: http://tinyurl.com/bj4go9s


	4. Chapter Four

My little James strangled me that night. Not with truth to the letter, though my throat did once or twice run dry, but in a more poetic vice grip he held me until blessed sleep took us both. His beloved and most fatigued teddy sat repose upon my knee—where he had dropped it prior; I took this as a sign of trust, for I had never witnessed the timeworn bear free from Jim’s claws. He had watched me awhile, pressing a free thumb against blue bathed pulsepoints across my throat. I admit I didn’t dare to blink, not until my eyes burned ferociously. I was caught in a retrospectively romantic fancy, admiring the nymph’s steady scrutiny. Twice he kissed me, and once I kissed him, but as I tried to pull in for a fourth embrace he smacked my chest with the heel of his palm and sat decidedly upright. The devil, the imp, the hideous little beast; he slid forward, buttocks planted firmly against the front of my pyjamas. Within me grew the most peculiar impetus to strike him…nay, to flay him, to slit his skin from belly to throat and watch as swollen meat and viscera throb and fall to decorate the bed with his abomination. He’d deserve it, the hateful brat, but of course I only blinked at him, helpless as I was.

Around an hour he sat upon me, twig-like arms propped upon my newly raised knees. Occasionally I felt the smooth arch of his lapin foot slide down my hip or across my belly, and just once (as I began to doze) it blurred in the air to tilt my chin upward afresh. I meant to ask him what business he meant by referring to me as his “Daddy”—I knew little of the boy’s late father, save for his name and the vast wealth he had consigned to his family—but the silence that had fallen between us seemed pudgy and cloying, certainly far too fat and lazy to be budged. Despite myself I began to nod off.

Jim seemed fond of the man, despite speaking little of him, if his affectionately named toys (be it I or his teddy) who had acquired honorific pseudonyms was any measure. I lay with one rough hand adoring at his greasy hair, my fingertips becoming smudged by the pomade he had surely smuggled from my drawer earlier that day. It was impossible not to touch him in some manner or another, even if he had been impetuous to break our most ardent embrace. Lazily he swept one lovely, earth-blackened toe across my chest until it prodded at my adam’s apple. I swallowed to make it wiggle, and he laughed, and oh, oh…how his body quivered, only slightly, chiming from his throat like a bell of crumbling ore—that recherché façade he no doubt learned from his mother clinging to every gasping giggle. I held him ferociously tight in that moment, reached out to feel him, to feel the bouncing of his wan chest struggle against my own. He allowed me to hold him for a moment, but not long enough, and soon he had wriggled his way out of my grip and lept off the bed in a versed impression of a bullfrog (complete with sound effects). It occurred to me that my William had once curled his chubby palms around his lips to imitate a dove…oh, how I’d teased him for it.

Jim tiptoed to the window, grasping two massive handfuls of the gauzy curtain and pulling himself en pointe. He paused there for a great while, bare calves straining as he cooled his face against the window, causing himself pain for pain’s sake. Children often do. A dozen convictions fluttered and faded in my mind before I could mouth the words to speak them, but Jim did not make any effort to fill the silence. I took to counting the seconds at odd intervals—rather defeating the purpose—until the nymph had declared his fill of lunar devilry by spinning around to face me. Thin arms rose to release the fabric and dropped to his sides. Such small wrists, pretty wrists, thin-skinned and nearly translucent, that Irish blood apparent under meager Irish skin. The damning child bent at the waist, shaking off his white nightshirt, and there—there. There he was. Anything I knew of James was rendered null, nay, fallacious at best; here my Jim stood. My Jim. Long limbed and lean, yet impishly short, as though a slender boy of sixteen had somehow been abridged. All 4’10” of him was bared before me, pale, sophistical. Hideous. I recalled that pretty, poignant fantasy of my boy soused in blood and decorated with his innards, as if with his shirt he had additionally shed his skin. I am unaware of what my reaction may have been…likely I stammered like a fool, as mild mannered a man that I am, and watched with profound fascination. From narrow shoulders burgeoned his arms, which framed perfectly a gaunt, longish torso. My Jim had giraffe’s legs sheathed in lovely, buttery flesh. I envied him his power…no man or woman had legs like those, it was impossible for such pretty things to support the full weight of an adult. Nymphs are blessed, you see, and made to consume, made to please, made to suck their selfish pleasure from unwitting victims. I tell you, I was caught in his spider’s web. I was trapped. Lastly I settled my gaze between his legs—at the very last indeed, as though to savour the crowning, half-bitten poached fruit. He was small there, and nearly hairless still, with only a regrettable patch of dark fuzz blooming by the base of his penis. Certainly he would have looked much better without the lamentable coarseness that one at pubescence, but I hardly thought of it at the time. I was much too awestruck, and certainly far too aroused to critique my tiny lover’s budding body.

The nymph tilted his chin upward by a sliver, eyeing me through slitted lids. Albeit transiently, I was reminded of Renoir’s provocative rendering of a flirtatious nymph (a portrait I oft admired), until he distracted me with stuttered movement. He slid his toes hard through the carpet as he shuffled forward, dropping all pretense of ostensible sophistication to instead find an interesting play-thing. Though I lay very still, my hand crept towards my groin, as slowly as I could manage so as not to bring untoward attention to myself. Meanwhile the boy scratched idly at the back of one calf with a calloused heel, staring aimlessly at my wardrobe. My view was that of his round buttocks and thighs, girdled slightly by a veil of shadow but no less maddeningly exquisite. As my hand gripped my erection he swirled around as if on cue, gleaming his teeth at me. The morose organ twitched beneath the sheets, and I clenched tighter around it to discipline it. I was rewarded with a tiny jolt of pleasure. Fearing that Jim would take the opportunity to mock me once more, I refrained from proper masturbation. He studied me a moment, arms crossed, before turning away with a pitilessly blasé expression. I followed suit by pleasuring myself in earnest while watching his tiny form pace my room.  

The boy tucked his little fingers inside the pockets of my favorite overcoat, knee sliding against the chair it rest upon as he searched. Unable to find whatever it was he was looking for, he toppled the poor piece of furniture over—and very nearly gave me a heart attack in the process. I imagined his woken mother walking in on him like this, nude and profligate, with poor Moran sticky with sweat beneath the sheets. Feigning sleep seemed the only option, but I was too terrified to move. To my tremendous luck the house did not stir, and within moments Jim was ransacking my desk. Watching my papers reduced to crumpled rubbish on the floor seemed a small price to pay for a naked nymph at my disposal, so I remained silent, rubbing myself as he dug his forearm into an open drawer. The brat pulled out a pack of cigarettes and gleefully pressed one to his lips, not seeming to care that it remained unlit. It was all I could do to restrain my laughter as he swaggered over to me, self-impressed and strikingly cavalier. The dearest child must have imagined himself as some audacious gangster, I can only presume, dusted with the fallout of a fired gun.

Those lips suckled red (from habitual mouthing at chapped patches) rolled the cigarette around from corner to corner, pulling the filter further behind his teeth. Two little hands pressed against the mattress, and he lept up, squeezing his knees together as he scooted up towards me. All the while I continued a gentle rhythm, innocently, innocently. I meant him no harm. “Got a light?” he whispered, dipping his head low to my throat. I couldn’t speak. To madden me further he rested his hand upon the restless movement of my own, sliding along with it, watching me. Not once did he break eye contact, and nor did I, though I’d have liked to; his own were so dark, so empty, so….

Dead.

In a moment of coerced bravery I slipped my hand away. His remained. I gasped at that, slack-jawed and befuddled—I must have looked the fool, and played it well, dumbstruck by the feel of a child’s touch. Lips bruised by umbra pursed and snapped as he fisted the sheet around my member, it acting as a second foreskin to my wanton delight. Orgasm fast approached, asphyxiating me with near violent contractions. I was choking, throttled, strangled: throat stoppered tight, body clenched and screaming for release. It came, it came, just as those lips paled by laughter touched upon what bulged beneath the cotton sheets.

He lifted his face, cigarette soggy with my seed. I wrinkled my nose.

“Never mind.” he chuckled, and flicked the wasted fag at my face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels rather disjointed...I'd prefer to just have merged it with chapter three, but I suck at writing quickly, so...here it is. The painting Sebastian mentions is this one: http://www.1st-painting.com/html/product/964-large.html
> 
>  
> 
> Any and all feedback is welcome, positive and otherwise. Comments sustain and motivate me.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for sleazebag Sebastian victim blaming. It sort of goes without saying given the subject matter, but he really starts to be a prick from here on out so I thought it'd be prudent to give a warning.

I dreamt of relentless bedlam that night, belly sickened in some queer mimicry of shame at what had guiltlessly befallen me. I imagined him but brighter, his spiritless eyes roused by beams of sunlight. It was far easier to picture him this way when asleep, unbridled by the burden of a rational mind. He sat cross-legged upon a makeshift pedestal of plasterboard tethered by insubstantial twine; a false king upon a faulty throne. Nothing but a bundle of nerves and selfdom, nursing his Id and clamping teeth into glorious ego. I ached to strip him of mortality—not to _kill_ him, but to mercifully separate life from his rapidly maturing body. Soon the nymph would grow and putrify, pure body sprouted with coiled hair meant to blight the rapturous.

Sleep served me poorly, and waking offered no enduring favour.

While there was no question of my innocence I had been forced into exile by yet another juvenile lover; constrained by unwitting secrecy, clipped and bound. I was no stranger to keeping a bitten tongue what with my proclivities demanding it of me, but to hold furtive the desires of another was most foreign to me. It was the child who had seduced me but decorum would have it that responsibility fell to the elder, unfair as the arrangement was. I could funnel my discontent into looks and gazes, but knew to remain silent purely to avoid conflict. Not once had I seen Jim truly angry before, but I had a feeling that it would be an impressive spectacle. It seemed prudent to save us both the trouble.

This is not to say that I bore my treasure any grudge. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was a privilege of the highest honour to breach the nymph’s defenses, to lay consummate beside twiggy fingers, crooked articulations, knees and ribs and scraped ankles. The boy’s sleeping form was bent, split in half by a crumpled sheet that only just obscured his worth. I exposed it slowly, unsettled by the sound of fabric creeping across vellus hairs. The thought to rape him only barely grazed my consciousness…it was a laughable idea. One can rape a nymph as easily as one can any of demonkind—they live to feed upon your woes, to drain you of all that is pleasurable and good. They manipulate you into believing your wicked thoughts are your own, take what they desire, and act a frightened child if intervention strikes prematurely. Clever, surreptitious things they are, disastrously cunning and prideful besides. I knew it to merely be the perilous manipulation of his youth, but the thought had already wormed into me and would not relent. I wanted to assuage my sufferings inside him, and I wanted those dark eyes closed as I did so.

He appeared to be fretting over something in his sleep, be it the sudden lack of covers or a passing nightmare. A moment passed, and then the right side of his face twitched and two wee fingers jolted alongside before he resumed sleep-palsied motionlessness. The veined knot in my chest squeezed painfully before falling into a compliant beat, arteries and veinways eager to engorge me with befuddling solidity. Jim did not stir as I fumbled between his naked legs; warm, clammy skin appreciable under sun brittled palms. Simple man as though I am, I could surely wax poetic of the softness of nymphetic flesh. Betwixt my fingers his foreskin slid like velvet over glass, exposing a glossed glans barely flushed with maturity. Jim’s leg jerked upward, then he stilled, the hardening of his small phallus unbeknownst to him. I knew he would wake soon, and delighted in the prospect of the dear’s bleary eyes parting with orgasm. I held his member ever tighter, bringing my thumb to caress the reddened slit. Absorbed by my ministrations, I started slightly when I glanced from pallid thighs to open, hungry eyes. His face was unaffected, lips tilted into a smirk most unbecoming. It annoyed me, I recall; both his feigned sleep and impassivity.

“You remind me of my father.” He mumbled, turning onto his back with a twist of his hateful bones.

For a moment I was caught off guard, and knew not what to say. I continued stroking him, and he made no move to stop me.

“How’s that, then?” I returned at last, hoping to sound only mildly curious.

His only response was to grin at me, plump lips stretched into flat lines over his teeth. I desired to kiss him.

As morning light seeped from floral curtains to skin like spurious alabaster I sold myself short, reduced to nothing more than a sodden, aged man spilling his perverse affections over a dispassionate participant. It is hard to picture the brain as no more than a cluster of delicate mush for all the trouble it causes a man; it seems a more tenacious master. There I was, whispering his name, no more than a mosquito to him as I wrangled with youth’s easy pleasure. A soft sigh fell from his lips as he orgasmed, thin hands limply wringing my wrist.

He hopped off the bed, shameless of his slimy, flaccid member. “Fuck you later, alligator” he snapped in a mock-American accent, grabbing his discarded nightshirt with a hooked toe before scuttling out of my room. His semen grew cold upon my hand, and it was several long moments before I had the heart to lick it off.

Summer camp. It was all Veronica could blather about, now, which Jim countered with an endless supply of creative epithets. As far as he was concerned, the only way his “scrawny arse” (as indelicately disseminated by him) would be found in summer camp was if he was gifted the Crown Jewels and a pint of ice cream besides. Veronica countered his fits with heavy sighs and crinkled admonishments of her winged eyes, which served only to encourage him. One morning I awoke to petulant screams of “you fucking _bitch,_ you _cunt,_ I won’t go, I _won’t_!”

I pointedly did not leave my room until afternoon to escape the inevitable fallout. The horrid woman had left for church in somewhat of an insipid rage—I could only tell she’d left for the slamming of the front door. The day’s heat had evaporated the morning’s dew of my window’s sill, but had not yet smothered the tiny room. It was an opportune moment to add to my personal journals (which as of late seemed to be the only writing I could ostensibly finish), and I tried to get as much done as I could during those fleeting hours. With Jim having just exhausted himself from an outburst, I didn’t expect to see him until at least noon, but was instead surprised by a loud rapping upon my door. Far before I could utter any sort of reply, the boy had slumped forward against the frame, seeming to stare past me. Clenched in his mandibles was a great wad of bubble gum--that much was evident as soon as he gaped open his mouth, letting the saccharine pink lump slip down his tongue until he bit down upon it. I meant to ask him what it was he wanted, but that was the enigmatic thing about Jim…try as you might, he had a way of keeping even the most pragmatic mouth shut. One white sock had been hoisted past his knee, the other had slipped down his leg to pool around a scabbed ankle. My voice, once bordering on loquacious, was now tame and stupefied by the hint of boy’s flesh. All I could do was slip my hand from pencil, watching wordlessly the nymph who lumbered through my doorway.

A bubble expanded from between his lips, a hint of tongue visible from the membranous pink. I dared not move, entranced by the gnashing of teeth that popped the delicate balloon. Jim had a habit of touching every obstacle in his path; a chair, a wall, the corner of my desk. And I, at last, when I blocked his path, slender thighs clenching around my waist as he perched upon my lap. Even still, I did not move.

“I hate her.” He mumbled into my chest. I agreed, soundlessly, stroking the back of his head. “And she hates me.”

A pause.

“I’m sure that isn’t true…” I returned without an ounce of conviction, wondering at the fine hairs at the hollow nape of his neck.

“She fancies you, you know.”

He laughed.

I nodded.

“Kill her for me.”

My face paled. I could feel every ounce of morning-milked strength slide off like hunks of meat stewed off the bone—it was no sudden surprise, only a morbid understanding of sorts. I knew he had me under his thumb.

“Kill her for me.” He repeated, the crook of a little palm smoothing the wrinkles of my trouser front.

I nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincere apologies for the long wait. I went through a break up and then my laptop died, so I've had to swallow my writer's pride and type this up on a tablet. I know, I know...picky. Updates should be more frequent, now, if I can kick myself hard enough. (Comments do wonders to motivate me, though....hint hint.) I would also like to calmly vocalize my contentment that HPLY FKUCKING SHIT ARE YOU SERIOUS ZHELLY READS THIS FIC OH MY GPD 
> 
> That is all.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fair warning, saying Moran is a massive jerk in this chapter is an understatement. Don't expect a pretty inner monologue...though if you've gotten to this point, I don't see why you would.

Of course, my dear reader, a murder pledged in haste bore with it the very same contrived righteousness that caused me to agree to it in the first place. Sweet, sadistic Jim had an inborn talent of making such unspeakable acts--however deserved--seem inarguably due. I did not question, then, the weight of his convictions. Veronica's death was wrought abstract...merely a prerequisite for earning Jim's favours, though I helped myself to the impending relief an eternal solution to her yapping would bring.  
Veronica. She wanted me with the very same conviction that drove me to her son, much to the amusement of the little bastard. I began to feel as though I were keeping _his_ secret, not he mine. In repetition it seems frivolous to mention, but I feared the child's anger--you cannot possibly understand the madness within his pretty head, you have not borne witness to it. You cannot understand what it was that I saw. You simply cannot.  
Such is the only explanation I can offer as to why I entered her room unarmed, unguarded, and without any coherent strategy. She'd called out to me from within her room, which I had previously assumed to be locked, tone not unlike that with which to call a hound. I felt as such, collared by tiny treacherous fingers. The woman had one leg perched atop her floral bedding, paused with a hand at her thigh where she'd been adjusting her stocking. I was shocked to find her this way, though not due to the state of her undress. Until that moment I suppose I'd viewed her as a living doll, waspie-nipped belly hidden beneath a more tangible moral fiber. Here she was dangerously dependent, a near-naked hull of a woman with thinly veiled breasts heaving toward me. How could anyone stand it...how could hands know pleasure to catch on fecund sow's fat, dimpling chubby hips with their fingertips? If I sucked upon that throat I'd find pores beneath the powder, little lumps where sebum lurked--not the clean, smooth flesh of her boy, untouched by the cancer of age.  
I knew what it was that she desired and I knew equally well that I was meant to feel the same--my ploy as shy lodger had gotten me this far, but liberties taken demanded a steep price. By her measure my reaction was most favorable, one man reduced to yawping commodity. 

"Mr.Moran..." she drawled, fingertips sliding from her thigh to hover delicately in the air. "Won't you help me with my dress?" she flicked two fingers, but I did not care to look to where she pointed. I was angry, you see. I had every right to be so. The indignation of this--the audacity of this woman, to lurch at me like a bitch in heat. I snarled at her, and she was startled a moment, only to smile limply at me. She had seen it before, this unique anger. Such is the mania of the artist, roiled by offenses to such a tender and critical eye. Perhaps her late husband knew of my struggle--perhaps he'd been quicker to correct her. 

"Veronica..." I heard myself say it, felt her name sluggish on my lips, but comprehended it only after my teeth clicked together firmly in place. It was no meek utterance...I had scolded her. Veronica. Bad, bad girl, I wanted to say. Bad, wicked girl.  
She sighed, gently but audibly, and closed her sticky lashes. Her red smile was forced, reminding me of her little one. It did not look so much burdened as mocking, tight and derisive. She wore it nearly as well as he, something I found terribly unnerving. A lesser man would have been bested.

"Won't you?" She repeated, stepping slowly into an unzipped dress. It took tremendous will to breach the distance between us, but I did it. I did it for him. Jim, Jim, Jim. Veronica had outlived her usefulness, whatever token principle had compelled her to suckle her demon-child past infancy. I suppose for that reason alone she deserved what she had coming to her, what I did only moments later. Heat slumped off her skin, pulsing at my palms. I held those freckled arms tight, skating over narrow shoulders to her throat. She leaned into my touch, eyes unrepentant. I'd like to think that she knew, but her eyes betrayed nothing...only that she yearned for a man's touch, even as it broke her spine. There was a solid crunch, then nothing.  
Crumpled on the floor, Veronica's hair tumbled about her head like a demented halo. She'd lived and died a whore, broken at the bobble with her mouth still blistering with cheap red lipstick. I'd have spat at her if it were not an affront to my delicate sensibilities. 

"My h _eeeee_ ro..." chirped a wee dulcet voice, sarcastic to the last note. I said nothing, only stood there, watched him observe his dead mother. Jim had been standing at the door way for who knows how long, supporting his meager weight with the side of his hip pressed against the frame, arms crossed. His eyes darted over her, seeming to vibrate in their sockets before he grew suddenly bored and lept belly-first onto her bed. Not knowing what to do, I stood au repos and awaited what trill command might come. The bed dipped and gave with his soft breath for a short while until he flipped onto his back, pointedly ignoring me as he gave the air a kick with one foot. My attention was split between the corpse on the floor and the empty child, his big toe now composing visual gibberish. 

"You did _so_ well, Moran." he dragged out, popping his arms beneath his head and twitching an absurd smile at me. It did not bother me that he felt no grief at the death of his mother, though I recall feeling as though it ought to. Still I said nothing. The room was still, very still, sponging up the last of Veronica's perversion. I no longer wished to look upon her, and so let myself approach the boy, who promptly sat up. At first I thought he might run away from me, but he did nothing of the sort, not even as I crowded the bed considerably. 

"Give me a cigarette." he grinned, poking his heel into my side. 

"No. They're terrible for you."

"I know. Give me one."

I paused, almost considering it a moment. 

"They'll give you wrinkles...and yellow your teeth."

"I know. Mum smoked."

We both smiled. 

I needed not say more, after all he knew where I kept them and it wasn't as though I was keen to come between him and his plaything. There befell a companionable silence as he rocked his foot along my ribs, watching me sway. I felt peacefully patient, alone with my Jim. I had all the time in the world. He tired of this shortly, huffing loudly through his nostrils as he slumped against me all at once. I caught him in my arms. 

"She wanted to shag you, you idiot. You could have." he mumbled. I thought I detected a note of jealousy, but it was an unlikely thing, knowing him. 

I said nothing. 

"Why didn't you, then? How about now? I bet she's still wet for you...must be, after you--"

I cut him off with a growl, gripping his tiny arms harder than I'd meant to. I felt him wince, but he made no move to get away.

"I don't fancy that sort."

"Sort?"

"Women. Girls." I shrugged, easing off my grip. He twisted against me, purring, then straddled my lap with sharp knees only narrowly avoiding tender spots.  
He whispered something so quietly that I missed it, feeling only the damp heat of his voice against my collar. Above his head I could see Veronica's open eyes staring glassily at us as her son raked his nails over flesh she'd coveted. Good, I thought. He'd suffered more than enough of her impropriety. The flesh of his wrists felt cool sliding behind my neck, thin arms locking around me and holding me captive. He smelled of damp leaves and soap and risidual stale pomade from a romp through my toiletries. 

"She called me worthless...." he purred, heaving his pelvis forward to meet mine. How dare she, the vile, wicked--

"Foolish..." he grunted, curling his toes in the sheets beneath my thighs. I could feel his ankle pop. 

"Narcissistic......" 

My own breath was hitching, now, one in for his every out. His small cock lept in his shorts, I could feel it against my own even through three hateful layers. James Moriarty was in essence a singular elongated muscle, fast twitch; his fortitudes were exalted quickly. His mind and his body were at constant odds, as they were now, tiny body pulsing with pleasure even as he regurgitated his mother's poison at me. 

" _Psychotic_...." he giggled, slowing his movements slightly. I took the initiative, knocking him flat onto his back and jerking the zip of my trousers downwards. Hateful little beast, he watched me with eyes half lidded and unimpressed. I could have slapped him, but my hand was working rather desperately at my erection and I hadn't the mind to do anything but. Jim stretched out like a cat, spine arching lazily as he let his legs part for me. For me, me, me--so I thought, wrecking my wrist all the while. His hand dipped into his shorts, stroking slowly, slowly...  
My ejaculate spattered on his face and hair, though fortunately missing his eyes. He blinked at me once, twice, then looked away with a disappointed sigh. His little hand never broke tempo, even as the other lifted the band of his shorts to expose the rosy tip of his perfect prick. He looked terribly small, ungaurded and unprotected...I could have done little more than lay on him to crush the breath out of his lungs. I could have squashed his skull with one careful blow to his temples. I could have wrung him pale.

The creature mumbled nonsense as he orgasmed, a small amount of thin semen squirting onto his belly. I cannot say I found it arousing, but I had just been spent. Before I had the chance to pull him close, he scooted off the side of the bed and stood rumpled and debased before his mother. Four thin digits scraped across his navel, then to his cheek, wiping off the sticky fluid. The child then threw it in her face with an angry flick of his wrist, dramatically turning on his heel and tossing his head. 

"Bitch." he muttered, leaving the door wide open behind him as he left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to apologize for the long wait between chapters, so I'll just leave it as this....things have been rough, but I swear I am trying. I love this fic, I just don't know if I have the talent or the patience to pull it off. My eternal thanks for those who have stuck with me thus far....you're all gorgeous and irreplaceable and I honestly wish I could articulate a better thank-you.
> 
> Comments and critique are much loved and work like a hit of crack for motivation.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one is more surprised than me by this update. 
> 
> There is racial slur used in this chapter. Please use your discretion.

Veronica's body stank. Gardenia perfume and rot oozed from her sunken throat, still blotted purple where I'd crushed her windpipe. There was a viscid crust along her chin where Jim had debased her. An afternoon in the summer's sweltering heat had not done her any favours, although insects had yet to take interest. I knew I could not avoid it for much longer--the corpse needed to be disposed of before anyone inquired for her. I was fortunate that her friendships were few in number and shallowly maintained, but in a community of gossiping housewives it wouldn't be long before her uninspiring presence was missed. Jim had made himself scarce, alternating between the sweets cabinet and cooling himself in the murky glow of the refrigerator. It was a slow and long-suffered task, dear reader, to wrap my arms around her flabby thighs and drag her into the half-bath just off mine. I desired nothing less than to look at her vacant eyes and her streaked mouth, but I remained transfixed until her skull collided with the side of the toilet. I could not stand it. She was a vile woman in both life and death; I had done her a mercy. With one hand perched on the slimy grout along the sink's edge I twisted her face to mine, contemplating what to do with the rest of her. 

There was nothing wise in leaving her. Nothing wise at all. Yet in that moment I was stifled in that hot little room, tiles sweating out the building's mildew and her stench. I could not stay, could not bear to spend another minute there. I felt no panic, no apprehension whatsoever as I descended the stairs. Killing Victoria had been one of the easiest things I'd ever done, though objectively I knew that in doing so I'd creater quite a predicament. It hardly mattered. The little beast was all mine, now. My own darling Jim. He was perched on his knees at the dining room table, back bowed with his sharp chin crushed against the varnished top. One arm was propped up holding the stick of a red ice lolly in his mouth, the other hanging limp at his side. The boy looked more akin to a lizard basking in the heat than a child, dark eyes darting coldly in my direction. He said nothing, simply took the lolly deeper into his mouth. His lips were red. Red as hers. 

"We can't stay here." I said, drawing closer to him. Jim popped the ice lolly out of his mouth and made a noncommittal noise. 

"Really. We've got to go." I tried again, leaning closer but not moving to sit in the chair he was currently making eyes at. The insolent little creature stared so long I was positive he was ignoring me, all until he jumped to his feet, slapped the sticky ice lolly onto the table, and ran upstairs without uttering one sacred word. A beat later and a door slammed shut. I lowered myself into a chair, trying to gather my thoughts. By no means was I prepared to tend to the needs and whims of a developing boy, much less a nymphatic little brat. 

The ice lolly was quickly becoming a pool of syrup, the stick twirling around as it melted. Hardly five minutes had passed before I heard his quick footsteps thumping down the stairs, each punctuated by something heavy striking every step. Jim reappeared in the kitchen in a frenzy, red-stained lips spread wide in an effusive smile and a large tote stretching out his arm. Half his face was obscured by the most ridiculous sunglasses I've ever seen--red-rimmed hearts sliding down his nose, at least two sizes two big for his head. I presume they once belonged to his mother, but I'd certainly never seen them before, most likely because they were entirely absurd.  
The monster peered up at me from those idiotic spectacles, the whites of his eyes jaundiced by their tint.

"Well?" he finally let out, dropping his arm away from the handle of his luggage. "Are we going, or aren't we?" he huffed out, walking past me to pluck the sodden ice lolly off the table and shove it back into his mouth. The kitchen was still but for the hum of the refrigerator and the soft sound of his swallows. Any argument was pressed out of me. 

Beyond a few of Veronica's trinkets and my own meager stash of notes, there was little of value in the estate to aid us on our way. I'd already taken the liberty of stowing what I'd found in my effects. I feel in my heart, now, that I should have been joggled with agitation. Among other normal physiological responses, anxiety seemed not to plague me in the way it ought. Nothing about our arrangement was practical, nor sound--our deliverance was fragile, and I would have been the first to admit it even then. What was to stop me? I desired nothing but to keep him close, to hold his threshing fingers until they stilled and melted against my palms. There was nothing for us in this house. 

Veronica's yellow Studebaker was in excellent repair, having been driven infrequently and kept more as an immodest lawn ornament. I piled Jim's luggage in the back seat, tucking my own small supply under the passenger's seat. The boy exercised a rare patience as I readied the car, slipping in only after I'd jammed the keys into the ignition. At some point or another the treat had disappeared, and the evidence had dribbled down his chin and onto his white shirt. 

"All set?" I asked, the words dying in my mouth. Jim grinned at me, slapping his hands against the dashboard as though he could push the car forward faster that way. I smiled back, letting my mind fall blissfully blank as I turned out of the driveway. I hadn't the faintest where we were going, but there was only one way out of the cul de sac so our direction was fixed for the time being. Jim, the little devil, immediately tasked himself with fiddling with the radio, settling on some dreadful rock and roll station. I found it astonishingly easy to tune out the blaring music, but less so to ignore his beguiled movements. 

"Mum never let me listen to this station. Called it nigger noise." he laughed, chirpy, rapping on his knees with tight knuckles as he swung his head to and fro. I'd never seen such a prime nymphatic specimen, moving his little body like there was more of him to swing. Could there be doubt in anyone's mind that he intended to draw my attention? The whole of him was wanton, sitting slack-mouthed with his school shorts riding up to mid-thigh. Tearing my eyes from him, I simply hummed in return, keeping my hand off the volume dial to distance myself from his mother's overbearing shadow. He amused himself for about forty miles or so, playing finger-games along the windowsill and blurting out 'punch buggy' despite the road being nearly empty. Having taken a scenic route, destination still unknown, I soon found us creeping down a dirt road shadowed by berry thickets and pine trees. I was keen to stop and check my map, but before I even had a chance to stall the engine I was being pummeled by a lapful of Jim's knees and fingers. 

"Jim--" I started, and was cut off, his wiry arms flung 'round my neck like a vice. He smashed his lips to mine, mouth tasting of warm cherries and dehydration. Desperately I clung to him, absolutely desperately, locking him to me with what I realize now was unnecessary force. Though the creature had caught me off guard, I would not let him command me. Not again. Angling him back against the steering wheel, with the curve of his spine thankfully avoiding the horn, I hooked my fingers into the belt-loops of his shorts and tugged down hard. Twice. Now freed from the rumpled cheap fabric, his small erection jumped slightly as I hovered my hand over it, bringing the other to the back of his neck. I yanked at his scruff like I would a puppy, earning a soft sigh from his all but blank face. He looked content, but nothing more, gazing lazily into my eyes. 

"Jim....my Jim..." I repeated, his dark eyes flickering with benign interest as I aborted touching him in lieu of freeing my own cock from my trousers. He did not react. The despicable little wretch, staring off like he'd not just jumped me a moment ago--I splayed my legs to force his own apart, pressing myself against his anus. Liar. Lying little nightmare, a smirk peeling his lips. Struggling as I might, I could not fit myself into him dry. I made to spit on my palm, but felt the sudden jarring chill of his fingers curling limply at my wrist. I paused. Jim merely blinked at me drearily before lunging forward, latching onto my bottom lip and sinking down with spiteful exaction until my gums were flooded with blood. Outrage as such I'd never felt pitched foul through my belly to my groin, earning the little nymph a blow to the side of the head. His tiny body heaved and he snarled, coming at me with teeth and lips and his damned heart-shaped glasses. I slammed my hands against his shoulders, pressing him down until I felt his flesh pop. I daggered him, cock forced into him dry and straining. 

The noise that came from him was animal, apathy mangled by unspeakable pain. Little fucker. Lying little brat. My darling Jim gasped and chewed the air as I fucked into him, feeling the blood dribble down against my thighs. He did not scream again, giving nothing but weak puffs of air pushed through his clenched teeth. I slowed my thrusts, slightly, letting his weak body fall to my chest. A quiet moment passed before I felt his little arms slide around my shoulders again, clinging to me as I buried my wilting anger in to the hilt. My ejaculate drowned in his wound.

"Good boy..." he whispered into my ear, the curve of a smile tickling at my temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what to say. It's been years. Like, actual years. 
> 
> *backs away awkwardly*


End file.
